Inside
by SweetFirefly
Summary: /Adventure 02/ The Kaiser thinks about the core of Daisuke Motomiya. /Hints of Daiken, pre-slash if you will. Companion to "Outside"/


**Fandom: **Digimon Adventure  
**Title: **Inside  
**Author: **SweetFirefly  
**Rating: **K+/PG  
**Genre: **Spiritual (mainly 'cause there isn't a "villain monologuing about souls genre")  
**Pairing: **Hints of Daisuke Motomiya X Ken Ichijouji  
**Spoilers: **Up to the end of the first arc.  
**Summary: **The Kaiser thinks about the core of Daisuke Motomiya.  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own Digimon Adventure

**A/N: **So this is a companion to "Outside", two among a batch of old fics I found when I was going through old notebooks. Daiken is one of my favorite couples, and Digimon Adventure is one of the fandoms I bring close to heart, so I'm glad I'm finally publishing something about it. This one is more creepy than anything else - one of the things I like about Daiken is the opportunity to write creepy fics and fluffy fics - and is supposed to take place a little bit after episode eight, "The Loneliness of the Digimon Kaiser".

If you like it, check its companion! And please let me know if there are any mistakes!

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**Inside**

The bath sponge made a rough sound as he scrubbed it unmercifully against his wound. It _fucking hurt, _but pain was good, pain enhanced the awareness of his surroundings, helped him to assess better the polished bathtub of the apartment he lived in.

Pain took him out of that frenzied excitement he'd been in since Daisuke Motomiya had looked him in the eyes.

He scrubbed the worst of his injuries, the gash on his shin that Motomiya had managed to reopen; as the soap touched the cut, little jolts of pain traveled through his leg and he flinched. That one would earn him a scar, an eternal reminder of his defeat.

_Partial _defeat, that was. He sure as hell wasn't feeling defeated. He had indeed gotten the shorter end of the stick; his plan had been ruined and his enemy had done quite the damage – with a sore back, throbbing cheekbones and skinned knees, he felt like his body was one gigantic bruise – but, as he'd taken in the devastated look on the goggle-head's eyes, he had known himself the victor of their private battle.

Of course, things had changed. He needed a new course of action; now that the Chosen Children knew his identity, they could easily find out where he lived; he wasn't sure what exactly they might try, but he was vastly outnumbered in the Real World. He needed to decide what to do.

He started washing his hair, and, as he massaged his scalp, the pain subsided a little. He almost couldn't feel it—

—just like in the moment he'd taken off the dark glasses and, possessed by a rush of vicious triumph, looked in Motomiya's fiery eyes and saw his core.

Daisuke Motomiya, he thought, was a package nicely wrapped to make everyone think there was nothing inside. The stupid goggles, the spiky hair, the trigger-happy attitude, the fashion disaster that he called clothes; all of them combined harmonically to lead to flawed assessment, to make a person think he wasn't worth it. If the Kaiser saw him on the street, he'd throw him a nickel.

The looks, however, told a story that couldn't be farther from the truth.

While Motomiya's clothes talked about a careless, idiotic boy – and though he was a careless idiotic boy to a certain extent – his expression talked only about passion and fire. His gestures were of determination; although he treaded clumsily among the other Chosen Children, he was slowly growing to be a good leader, if not a great one. His inner strength and pure, _direct_ thought process had a way of tearing through the Kaiser's intricate plans.

The Kaiser had already thought Motomiya was the worthier challenge of that bunch of kids – the right amount of firepower, the willingness to be there in every battle and the fact that he just wouldn't _stay down _being the reasons why – but he'd never truly seen the inside of Motomiya. He had never witnessed his core.

Not until that afternoon.

He shuddered, a spark of excitement curling around his spine.

In that moment when he'd maneuvered the Bakemon, the moment Motomiya had jumped on him from behind and sent them both tumbling down the hill, his enemy's eyes were burning. It wasn't just anger, or hatred; it was the shine of his very core, the fire inside him. As he'd stared him down, unmoving and unwilling to turn away even with the Deltamon aiming at him, it had been as if the Kaiser had peeled all the layers of his skin, and exposed his spirit in all his glory. That spirit wasn't dark like the Kaiser's own; in those eyes, he'd seen a fascinating light, like the bulb that calls the moth to its death.

As the Kaiser had revealed his name, the fire had started to dance in frenzy, as if Motomiya was about to explode from the heat – as if Motomiya wanted to burn them both – and Ken Ichijouji realized he had _found _something.

How lovely would it be to take that boy down and break him apart, to have him unmade at his feet—

A sharp jolt of pain took him off that train of thought; some of the shampoo had flown off his hair as he had shaken his head, and made direct contact with the open gash on his skin.

The pain washed his mind clean, though.

He bit his lip. He'd been daydreaming again.

Aggravated, he pressed the bar of soap into the fresh wound. The pain was so intense he clenched his teeth; it spread through his skin in small waves as he pressed his mouth against his arm and bit off a muffled scream.

He would travel to the Digital World.

Yes, he decided, eyes closed. He would stay on the Digital World permanently; that way, they would not be able to use the knowledge of his Ken Ichijouji identity, and he would have far more time for his domination plan. Besides, he was growing ever wearier of the mask, of Ken Ichijouji and his pathetic parents and Digimon and life, and the polite layer he had to put over every one of his sentences.

About Daisuke Motomiya… he'd leave him be for a while. He was a distraction and a pastime; he had no time for those, and cannot afford to have him eat at his focus. He would stop trying to attack him personally – let him think he'd been forgotten like the small insect he was.

And, in the end, after he had defeated all the other enemies, he would turn to Motomiya and look at the inside of the horrid package, at that beautiful fire. Then, and only then, they would settle the question of who was better; then he would compare the darkness inside of him with the burning core of his greatest rival. And he would win; and he would have that burning spirit tamed, all to himself.

He smiled, rinsing his wound. The match to his intellect, his worthy adversary, had finally been _found; _now he could barely wait.

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**Thanks to: **Positron Cannon and everyone who worked with him on the herculean task of subbing Digimon Adventure 02, Tamers and Frontier. These guys are heroes!

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